Thoughts on politics, law, culture and guns from an eclectic, but mainly center-right point of view

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

This Day in the History of Justified Preemptive Attacks

On this day in 1967, the Six Day War began when Israel, convinced an Arab attack was imminent, conducted a devastating air raid against Egyptian military targets. An Egyptian attack was imminent and the preemptive air strikes were key to Israeli success. It was Egyptian false reports of success which caused Jordan and Syria in turn to attack Israel. The Israeli Defense Force took Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. They have given back the first two absolutely and the West Bank conditionally. They should never give up the Golan. The IDF air arm did better later, but the armored forces never fought more bravely or effectively. The Six Day War was the high water mark for Israeli ground battle prowess.

Hey Prag....wait a second......Egypt's Nasser was jumping up and down for the first ever deployed UN peacekeeping mission, to go away. U Thant callled his bluff and said OK...then Nasser blockades the Strait of Tiran from Israel....this was the actual declaration of war....without a shot being fired. Israel was then compelled to respond. So the causus belli was amply provided by Egypt in troop movements, words, and actions...ultimately, much to their chagrin and embrassment.

I know all of that......and Iraq at one time used WMD's on their neighbors and countrymen....and they had not lived up to their end of a cease fire. Saddam played coy for 12 years, reaping benefits of oil for food. The idea that Iraq under the direct command of Saddam Hussein, being an imminent threat to the USA was always folly. The idea was the passing off of the unaccounted for WMD's ( unaccounted for by Even Hans Blix in late January of 2003 ) to terrorist factions.

That is a completely rational thought, regardless of how bad the intelligence actually was at the time.

That's all I'm saying. Don't play the " __________ ( insert country ) was not an imminent threat ", because it goes way beyond such a sophomoric arguemnt.

I begrudgingly supported the Afghanistan invasion because the government was harboring people who had committed an act of war against our country.

I could get into the details about what we should have done there (i.e. rebuild the country as a model before we destroyed the next one) but suffice to say president Bush made a "solemn oath that the people responsible for this atrocious act would be brought to justice. That has not happened, nor has the reconstruction that would justify our actions to the world but more importantly to the Afghani people followed as promised. This has erased our credibility.

It could be argued, as I think Tony did, that the training camps represented (especially in light of 911) an eminent attack, and thus an invasion was justified.

Good discussion, guys. but Iraq is sui generis because it had invaded a neighboring country and we got the UN green light to kick them out. We did, quickly and that war didn't end; there was merely a cease fire with conditions. Saddam (BIH) kept almost none of the conditions so finishing that war was fully justified. Iraq was not an eminent threat but the world changed on 9/11 and we couldn't let him continue to flaunt the cease fire agreement, and give haven to terrorists and support terrorism against Israel. He had to go. I don't think Germany was an iminent threat to us in 12/41.